New Planter Features Conservation Tillage

New Planter Features Conservation Tillage CULTIVATORS Cultivators (58C) 4-6-27 "This is the first modern row crop planter designed for conservation tillage planting which also works for conventional planting," says Mike London, sales manager for the Hiniker Company, Mankato, Minn. He's talking about their new tillage kit which bolts onto a regular toolbar planter for 4-way conservation tillage. The completed unit can be used for no-till, ridge planting (till and plant), minimum till or conventional planting. The Hiniker tillage toolbar is a semi-mounted unit. In turn, the planter toolbar is bolted behind the tillage toolbar. Currently, Hiniker's unit is set up to accept White's 5100 planter units or Deere's 7100. London says Hiniker hopes to have adapter units for International and Kinze planters (from Kinze Manufacturing, Williamsburg, Iowa) available soon. Each row width of the Hiniker attachment consists of a stabilizer disk, two heavy-duty row-cleaning disks and a fluted coulter. Any, all or none of these components can be used, depending on the planting method chosen. For no-till, only the fluted coulter is used. For ridge planting, the fluted coulter and the cleaning disks are needed. Minimum till requires the fluted coulters and/or the cleaning disks after a previous pass with a chisel plow-or disk. The stabilizing disk works with all three methods. It acts as a depth gauging wheel and also makes the initial cut into the soil. For conventional planting, a single pin locks the entire tillage unit out of the way. Since the planter and the tillage unit are separate, the tillage unit can take the punishment of rocks and other obstacles while the planter performs its function without obstruction. Each row of the tillage unit can flex up and down 8 in. without affecting the rest of the tillage sections or the planter. The planter operates independent of the tillage unit. The tillage unit is kept in the ground by a unique weight transfer system. A weight mounted on a track can be adjusted to apply from 300 to 700 lbs. of pressure on just the tillage unit. London notes, "You move the weight from the rear to the front. The further ahead, the more downward pressure you get for deeper penetration or for faster planting speeds." Hiniker field tested the planters on over4,500 acres last spring according to London. Harlan Burley of Medelia, Minn. had one of them: "We used a Buffalo no-till planter for 4 or 5 years and really liked it. But I think the Hiniker planter did an even better job on trash than the Buffalo planter. With the Hiniker planter, I don't believe you'd ever have to chop or disk stalks. We never did plug it up," Burley told FARM SHOW. He adds, "We thought it worked a little better on hard ground, too. Another thing we liked was the way you could remove the tillage units from it to use just the conventional planter. Everybody's concerned with conservation these days. This just might be the answer." Burley said he used an IH 1086 to pull the 8-row rig, equipped with Deere Max-Emerge units. He notes that the large tractor was needed to add stability more than for power since the planter is so heavy. The planter is available in 4, 6 or 8 row models with 30 to 40 in. row spacings. Cost will be from $1,300 to $1,400 per row for the Hiniker tillage unit. (The planter units are purchased separately.) For more details, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Hiniker Company, P.O. Box 3407, Mankato, Minn. 56001 (ph 507 625-6621).

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